Large-scale industrial actions eyed this year

Most large enterprises expect that labor-management relations will become uneasy this year, a recent survey showed. As about half of the companies plan to reduce their manpower, employment stabilization is expected to become a hot issue in labor-management relations this year.

Based on its survey of executives in charge of personnel labor affairs at 70 enterprises, the Korea Employers Federation said Wednesday that most of the respondents feel ill at ease about labor-management relations, with 48.4% of the total saying they were ¡°somewhat uneasy¡± and 35.5% describing themselves as ¡°very uneasy.¡± A mere 3.2% of the pollees felt that the relations would be stabilized.

About 43.6% of the respondents said that they were planning to make employment adjustments. Of those, 44.4% preferred relocation or conversion of manpower as a means of making adjustments while an equal percentage of respondents favored early retirements.

Ordinary wage increases this year are expected to reach 4-6%, according to 40.3% of the respondents, 1-3% (27.5%), freezing (16.1%) or 7-10% (12.9%). Those surveyed forecast that the major demands of the labor unions would be employment stabilization (27.4%), curtailment of working hours (20.4%), wage hikes (17.7%), conclusion of agreement to strengthen labor union (14.0%), and the conversion of part-time employees into regular employees (7.0%).